


Acacia

by SpicyGoddess



Category: Marble Hornets
Genre: Graphic Description, Hanahaki Disease, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Other, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-04
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-17 06:07:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29837169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpicyGoddess/pseuds/SpicyGoddess
Summary: Oh what he wouldn’t give for those evenings again, to be out in the summer heat, director in front of him, laughing at some joke he had told. Glancing at his closest friend and seeing him smile just before he angled his head to the side trying to hide it. That look alone was more than enough to make him feel warmer than the humid air around them.Now all he had was forests. Cold, and open, and twisting, and.Gone
Relationships: Brian Thomas | Hoody/Timothy "Tim" Wright | Masky
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	Acacia

What he wanted more than anything was for someone to come. Cold, that was how it had always felt- since, since.

Since he woke up on the floor of the burnt out hospital.

Oh what he wouldn’t give for those evenings again, to be out in the summer heat, director in front of him, laughing at some joke he had told. Glancing at his closest friend and seeing him smile just before he angled his head to the side trying to hide it. That look alone was more than enough to make him feel warmer than the humid air around them.

Now all he had was forests. Cold, and open, and twisting, and.

Gone, it was all gone. And it had left him a husk. He had watched, with burning envy as the pair, one red, one green walked, looked, discovered. He had orchestrated this. He should have been pleased by his work. But all he had was anger, anger, anger.

How dare they leave him like this?

How dare they smile at each other while he was left alone with only darkness and pain?

A husk, a mask.

That was all he had become to them.

If he knew that this was going to happen he wouldn’t have orchestrated for the pair to team up. It was fine at first, when they simply tolerated one another, when they were simply working toward the same goal.

It was when they were on the run that it began in earnest. Those minutes, hours, days when all he did was cough became more frequent. The feeling was constantly at the back of his throat, he could almost feel the phantom grip on his lungs that had been there since the beginning suddenly squeeze harder than ever before.

So he coughed and coughed. 

And when he could finally rasp in enough air to keep himself upright, he looked down at the floor. There in the crimson puddle lay a flower.

He had laughed at first, hands gripping his hair, and pulling harshly, trying to ground himself as he leaned back on his knees. It was just his luck really, to have begun losing himself to an eldritch creature, and to now have an impossible disease.

He laughed until he cried, then laughed until the tears were dry again.

-

Brian growled to himself, arm shaking ever so slightly as he stifled a cough. This damn disease had made his role significantly harder to say the very least. 

The one in the green looked out into the night from where he stood, illuminated by the harsh light of the parking lot, just outside of the door to the side of the hotel. He said something to the man next to him, the one Brian did his best to not acknowledge in any way. The camera pointed out across the nearly empty parking lot toward the bushes. Brain knew that the video wouldn’t pick him up, and he hoped the sound wouldn’t either.

He made a choked sound as a cough tried to slip out again.

Tim pulled the cigarette from his mouth, and Brian could almost hear his words despite the distance “Jay, we’re safe, Alex has no clue where we are.”

Jay responded, his voice nervous “I know, but…” he trailed off.

Tim seemed to know what he meant and put an arm around his shoulder. Brian felt the vice squeeze harder than it ever had before. He curled in on himself, body shaking as he tried to suppress it. He could feel sharp pain digging into his lungs. If he didn’t handle this soon it would certainly blow his cover.

A thought occurred to him, and before he could lose the courage to act on it, he dropped his camera onto the ground and ripped off his right glove. It quickly disappeared from the frame.

His left hand was in the camera's view, clenched into an impossibly tight fist as he pulled, willing himself to stay silent as he felt the thorns that came along with the blooms rip apart his throat. 

Small yellow flowers, speckled with blood fell into view. 

After that night, he did what he could to avoid spying on the pair. It lessened the coughs somewhat, not seeing him, not knowing what they were doing. He turned his attention back to Alex, back to leading him off their trail. Which led to now.

He was coughing again, the third time that day when the footsteps approached. He looked up, recognizing the figure, and decided that he was not worth his attention at the moment.

Besides, he was sure that Alex would love the opportunity to gloat while he coughed out his lungs. The scene seemed like it would be dramatic enough for him.

He was surprised when Alex waited until the small sprigs of yellow fell onto the dirty floor. 

Unexpectedly, a hand reached down, carefully grabbing the flowers, avoiding the thorns as they were lifted to Alex's face. He snorted, a quiet noise as the yellow red flower twirled in his grip. Brian felt his lips turn up into a smile at the sound. He had found it entertaining when he had realized too.

“Acacia, huh ToTheArk?” What he had become was said in a tone that was meant to mock, but the hidden joke underneath was lost to neither of them.

“Yeah,” He breathed out, voice little more than a rasp now. He didn’t plan to post this, and he could tell Alex wasn’t recording. But his voice sounded so wrong, so hurt that he knew no one who once knew him would recognize it as his.

-

Running made it feel as though his lungs were being shredded. The vice had become tighter over the days, had increased when he freed Jay, since he had seen that Tim intended to protect him.

Why couldn’t he have saved him? Why had he left him to live in the woods? Left him to continue as though they had never met, as if Brian had been nothing more than a toy that had lost its value. Replaceable after his time had been spent. Either way, it didn’t matter anymore.

His feet moved quickly, and he skidd as he took the next corner. Right into the balcony. He looked behind him, could feel the fury, a different kind of fire than the one burning in his lungs. This one radiated from the man that he wanted nothing more than a pleasant warmth from, a comforting hand, soft words, and quiet laughs.

He looked forward again. He had nothing left to lose anyway.

-

He could feel that it was on his lips, down his throat, firmly rooted into his lungs. Everything hurt, but his heart was the worst of it.

Footsteps. He could hear them as the other approached closer than he had been in years, and he dragged in a shaky breath, a small raspy groan leaving his throat without him intending it to.

Fuck.

He hadn’t wanted him to know, had wanted it to die with him. Tim didn’t deserve to know, but now it hurt worse than it ever had before. A deep grief that, Brian could feel in his heart, unmatched by the worst days he had been on the run. So close that he could reach out to him now, but nothing would listen- everything hurt.

A hand reached out, but it never revealed what had been hidden beneath for so many years.

Brian felt his chest still. 

The yellow flowers shook under their mask as Tim ran. A final static filled the air. 

**Author's Note:**

> Love how every time I write Brian his narrative is like that.


End file.
